Nothing's Changed
by Barley Shadow
Summary: (Drop Dead Fred.) Fred returns to help Mickey Fartpants' daughter Natalie realize that you shouldn't care what people say, and shouldn't strive to be in the popular crowd because they're not always very nice people. (Complete.)
1. Chapter One

_**A/N:** I do not own Drop Dead Fred. I have never had an imaginary friend, and I think, although great, Fred would do more damage than good so I'm quite glad I don't own him. Or Natalie, or Elizabeth, or Mickey Fartpants. So, with that all done, on with the show!_

**Chapter One**

"Dad! I'm going out, see you tomorrow, don't wait up!" shouts Natalie as she opens the front door. Clad in black leather pants and a dangerously low blood red halter top she shuts the door behind her, runs down to her car and gets in.

Natalie gets to Mik's house about nine o' clock, pulling up at the driveway and beeping the horn twice. She turns down the blaring rock music and waits for her friend who steps out of her front door like a celebrity, heels that had to be over four inches high and a skirt that only just covered her behind. She waves to her extravagant mate and Mik totters down the steps to meet her.

"Mik, you look beautiful, I could stand you on a street corner and you wouldn't look out of place," says Natalie, revving the car up as Mik puts on her seatbelt.

"I shall take that as a compliment," her friend replies as Natalie speeds off at over forty miles an hour.

At the club, the scene was jumping. Natalie and Mik sidled over to the bar and put their orders in. The bartender serves them and they swallow the shots in one. Leading her friend to the centre of the dance floor, Natalie stops and dances for a second with every guy she meets.

"What's your name?" asks one.

"What's yours? Gullible?" she asks in return.

"Jack."

"Melissa," answers Natalie. It was the name she always used in clubs, guys couldn't find her the next day if they didn't know her name. The DJ swaps tracks to some fast moving club music and after a while, Natalie and Mik escape the hordes dancing and get more drinks.

"Smirnoff Black Ice," orders Natalie, she looks at Mik. "Make that two. You ok?" she asks her friend.

"Too right I'm ok. Have you seen the cute guy with the blonde hair and white shirt?"

"Yeah I've seen him, have you read his shirt?"

"One of us is thinking about sex. Ok, its me," replies Mik. "I want that shirt." Natalie takes a swig of her drink.

"I'm sure we could get it off him by the end of the night. You fancy going back in there?"

"Nothing would give me more pleasure," says Mik, swigging from her own bottle.

"I'm sure there's something else would," both girls laugh and head back to the dance floor. Passing, Natalie is sure she sees a skinny little man wearing a lurid green suit with fiery orange hair, sticking up at all angles. She laughs, but the next second he is gone, maybe she just imagined it? But she wasn't going to let him spoil her night, she soon finds the guy with the shirt and both girls begin to dance.

Two hours later and the club is full. People are waiting outside to get in and no one is going out. Natalie and Mik are both a little worse for drink and Mik wears the shirt displaying the fact that 'one of us is thinking about sex, ok, it's me.' Wondering where the topless guy is she took it from, she stumbles back to the bar to find Natalie.

"Got your shirt then?" asks Natalie.

"Yup, all miney mine," replies Mik, slurring a little.

"How many guys?" asks Natalie.

"Snogged four, danced with unlimited amounts of really good guys."

"Snogged four? You're a bad girl Mik, a very bad girl," she laughs and Mik cracks up too. Natalie orders more alcopops and they wait by the bar for a minute. A guy comes up to Mik.

"Wanna dance?" he asks, seductively.

"Already danced, thank you Mr. gonna puke," she rushes towards the bathroom, pushing people out of the line, snagging a free cubicle and throws up. Natalie follows her into the bathroom.

"Mik, you ok?" she asks, leaning against the door.

"Ask me in two minutes," replies Mik. Natalie sighs and fights her way over to the mirror. She checks out her make-up, and applies some new lipgloss. Mik comes out of the cubicle.

"Alright?"

"Yup, never been better," replies Mik. "More Smirnoff?" she heads out of the bathroom. Natalie pulls her back.

"I think we've had enough tonight, lets dance," she advises. Opening the bathroom door she almost bumps into the man in the green suit. He turns around and wrinkles up his nose.

"Hey, watch it!"

"Piss off," says Natalie. "Stupid pervert hanging round the ladies." The man doesn't get out of her way.

"You said piss off, that's naughty, naughty naughty naughty, what would your mother say? I can say something too, shit! Shit shit shit, you look like shit!"

"Do you want a broken nose asshole? Get outta my way." The man opens his eyes wide in realization.

"You know Elizabeth!" he exclaims, pointing a finger in Natalie's face.

"Go away!" says Natalie, bringing Mik into the middle of the dance floor, Green Suited Guy doesn't seem to follow. Natalie can't help the feeling that he was incredibly childish, not how he looks because clearly he was an adult, but in his speech and the way he conducted himself.

"Asshole," she thinks as she dances with Mik. Suddenly, he appears in front of her. Natalie jumps.

"You know Elizabeth!" he says again. Natalie groans and leaves the dance floor, with him in hot pursuit, she leaves Mik dancing with a guy she'd bumped into. Natalie leaves the club, getting her hand stamped on the way out so she could get back in, he's following her.

"Look, I don't know what you want Mr. But I'm trying to have a good night out here, and you are getting in the way, why don't you just fuck off and leave me alone?"

"Because you know Elizabeth," he says, smiling as if she had just given him candy.

"She's my step-mom, so?"

"No way! Natalie? You're all grown up! What the bloody hell happened to you? I suppose now you're not going to be any fun anymore, just like your mum was when she grew up, bitchy bitchy bitchy, I told her, I said, Elizabeth, you've turned into the Megabitch! And she had her hair cut all funny, I mean, when I cut it it looked good, maybe it should have been orange but then it was manky, absolutely horrible," he babbles on. "So, you don't remember me then?" Natalie looks at him a little surprised.

"No. Why should I?"

"I'm Fred! Come on, you can't say you don't remember Fred, we had all those fun times smashing windows and eating dog poo and getting muddy," he says.

"No. Now would you please leave me alone?"

"No. So Elizabeth's still with old Mickey Fartpants then?"

"Watch it, that's my dad you're talking about," says Natalie. One of the bouncers from the club approaches the pair.

"Are you alright miss?" he asks. Natalie turns to face him.

"Yes, I'm alright, thank you," she says, while Fred dances behind the bouncer, picking his nose and wiping his fingers on the bouncers shaved head. He looks up.

"Don't!" Natalie says to Fred, who is now is attempting to disconnect the bouncers ID card from his pocket.

"Don't what, miss?" the bouncer asks, oblivious to any of Fred's antics, in fact, it's like he can't even see him.

"Don't, erm, don't worry about me, I'll be back inside in a minute," she says, smiling.

"Alright," says the bouncer, scratching his back, he goes back to the door of the club.

"What the fuck was that?" Natalie asks Fred. "Who the hell are you?" Fred just smiles his childish grin and points to the bouncer, who's stopped, with his trousers round his ankles. Natalie lets out a laugh and he turns around, she looks innocently at him and he shakes his head, returning to the club.

"I'm a big strong man who chucks people out of places and gets in fights, oh dear, my trousers have fallen down," says Fred, strutting about more like a chicken.

"Fred?" asks Natalie a little hesitantly.

"Yes, Natalie, Natalie Fartpants if Mickey's your daddy," says Fred.

"Who are you?"

"Me? I'm Drop Dead Fred!"

_**A/N:** Who wouldn't know Drop Dead Fred? Hope you liked the chappie._


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

Natalie carries a drunken Mik into the house, laying her down in the spare room, next to hers. The door opens and Elizabeth comes in.

"Nat?" she asks, quietly. "Are you ok?"

"Sure," Natalie replies, turning round to face her step-mother. "Mik's passed out, so I thought it better to not take her home." Elizabeth looked down at the sleeping Mik.

"Good idea, in the meantime, what time do you call this?" she says, not quite in the angry parent tone but not quite in the casual I Don't Care When You Come Home voice. Natalie takes her mothers wrist and inspects the watch on it.

"Half past one," she replies, walking round her mother, but stopping at the door of the spare room. "Who's Fred?"

"Fred?"

"Yeah, Dead Fred, or something," says Natalie.

"Drop Dead Fred? How do you know about Drop Dead Fred, you can't remember him," she says, both girls walk out of the room onto the landing, and then into Natalie's room, filled with the normal teenage crap.

"Yeah, I met him at the club," explains Natalie. Elizabeth stifles a laugh.

"Fred? At a club?" Just after this comment, Fred appears between Natalie and Elizabeth, quite a hard thing to do as there was only about a foot between them, sitting on the bed. But Elizabeth couldn't see him.

"Yeah, at a club!" Fred almost shouts at her, maybe two inches from her face. "What's wrong with that? Drop Dead Fred can go clubbing if Drop Dead Fred wants to go clubbing."

"Fred's not really the clubbing type," Elizabeth says.

"Yes he is, and I can say that your daughter has a lot more fun that you do," says Fred, getting from between them and walking round the room. Natalie tries to ignore him while talking to her mother.

"Who is he?"

"I'm Fred! Drop Dead Fred," says Fred, exasperatedly. "Look, why are we hanging round here? You've got a car, we could go to DisneyWorld, or Idaho, or the moon!"

"He's the imaginary friend I had when I was young, and, he appeared to me to sort out my marriage problems with my first husband, and he appeared to you when you were little," Elizabeth explains. Fred disappears in Natalie's closet and comes out holding a black thong between his thumb and forefinger, as if it's about to explode.

"What's this?" he asks, disgusted, shaking it about. Natalie glares daggers at him. Elizabeth notices.

"He's here, isn't he?" she asks. Natalie gets up and snatches her underwear from him. Fred looks a bit indignant.

"Yes, he's here alright. How do I get him to go away?"

"You can't, ha! I'm here, to stay," Fred sings, jumping around the room, then disappearing into the closet again, reappearing with a black feather boa round his neck and a pair of stilettos on his feet.

"You can't," Elizabeth says. "He's here for a purpose, and he can't go away until it's all sorted out." She strokes Natalie's hair, and Natalie shrugs out of it.

"And I'll be screwed if I know what this purpose is," says Fred, wobbling over to them in the shoes. "You've got awful shoes. Poo shoes! Poo shoes! When you were little, we used to walk around in dog poo together, and I did that with Elizabeth too." Fred sticks out his chest like a proud penguin.

"Do you know what the purpose is?" asks Natalie, not bothering to take the things off him, knowing that if she did he'd just get more.

"Nope."

"So, he could be here, for a while?" asks Natalie.

"He could," Elizabeth agrees, "And it's two in the morning so lets get to bed." Elizabeth gets off the bed and leaves Natalie to get changed and get into bed.


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

"Hey Natalie," greets Mik on Monday at school.

"Hey darling'," says Natalie. "Have you got my Psychology notes? I can't find them and wondered if you'd picked them up." Mik ruffles through the paper in her folder for a minute, while they sit down outside in the sun.

"Nope, no Psychology," say Mik. "Maybe you left them in class?"

"Yeah, I'll ask Preston," replies Natalie.

"So, you didn't do the homework?"

"Shit! What was it?" Natalie asks.

"That questionnaire thing." Natalie groans.

"No, I completely forgot, and he's given me a last warning about it."

"Come on, we'll go photocopy mine, he won't be able to tell they're the same," says Mik, pulling Natalie towards the library.

"And now, can everyone leave their homework on the front desk, as you all leave, thank you," says Mr. Preston at the end of the class. Everyone dutifully gets out their sheets and leaves them on the front desk and files out of the classroom. Natalie puts her sheet down.

"Mr. Preston?" Karen Baines asks, from behind Natalie. Karen Baines, the most popular girl in school, who, for no apparent reason, Natalie thought, hates her. Karen gives in her sheet, just as Natalie and Mik reach the classroom door.

"Yes Karen?" asks Mr. Preston.

"Natalie photocopied Mikaela's homework."

"Spineless little bitch!" says Natalie as they sit back on the grass at lunch. "Who the fuck is she to say that? I know she's copied Daryl's homework more than once, teachers bloody pet."

"Just leave it, Nat," says Mik. "She's not worth it."

"Revenge, I will have my revenge," says Natalie.

"You're reading too much into this, you're not normally so vindictive," says Mik. "She's not worth your revenge, save it for someone better to spend it on."

"Revenge?" asks Fred, appearing from nowhere in his seriously dazzling green suit. "I'm good at revenges. We could tie her up, and make her drink rainwater, or we could throw flourbombs at her, or mud, yes, mud!"

"Go away," says Natalie, only half-thinking about her comment.

"What?" asks Mik, taking a sip from a bottle of water.

"Oh, I was just thinking aloud, sorry," Natalie replies as Fred disappears.

"Here she comes," says Mik, putting her bottle back in her bag as Karen Baines comes and sits a few feet away from them, with all of her popular friends.

"But, we can't have people not doing homework, not when the exams are so close, it was for her own good," Natalie and Mik overhear her say. All of her friends, hanging on every word, laugh, and Karen takes a lipstick out of her bag and winds it up, smearing the blue substance onto her lips, appearing clear.

"Look at her, the blue hue makes your teeth look whiter, as if she doesn't look 'perfect' enough," says Mik in a silly imitation voice. "Great choice of places to sit," she adds, under her breath. "There's Si." Natalie waves at her boyfriend Simon, as he looks up at her from the other side of the courtyard. He comes over.

"Simon!" exclaims Karen, drawing his attention. And, trust him, he goes over to speak to her. Karen laughs at something he says, a little too much, and runs her fingers down his chest.

"Aargh, I'm going to kill her!" says Natalie, watching everything.

"Uergh, is that your boyfriend?" asks Fred, appearing and sitting on the grass beside Natalie in a Buddhist meditation position, quickly dropping it and getting up, walking towards Simon.

"Fred!" says Natalie, "Come back!"

"Natalie, are you ok?" asks Mik.

"Sorry, I'm just, I'm not feeling too great," Natalie apologizes.

"Look at his hair," says Fred, standing by Simon and inspecting his hair. He suddenly picks at Simons hair, and then putting his fingers into his mouth, like monkey's do when they're eating each others fleas, he looks round innocently. Natalie glares daggers at him as Karen rests her head on Simon's shoulder. Fred stops picking at Simons hair, and blows violently in his ear, making him turn, looking straight towards Natalie, who's glaring in his direction. She smiles at him, and Fred vanishes once again. He makes his excuses to Karen and comes over to Natalie and Mik.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey," replies Natalie.

"What?" he adds, after a short pause.

"Nice of you to flirt with Karen, maybe sometime you should realize she's not your girlfriend."

"That was not flirting!" protests Simon. Natalie crosses her arms, to end the conversation. "You know I'd much rather have you."

"Well it'd be nice if that was the way you acted," says Natalie, unfolding her arms but not ditching her cold tone with him. Karen and her mates get up and go off somewhere else.

"I'm sorry," Simon whines. "Come on, you know you can't resist me."

"Resist you?" Natalie asks, giving him a playful punch. "I can resist you, you just watch me." Fred appears on the grass again. Natalie was getting tired of his constant disappearing and appearing.

"That's Karen Baines is a nasty one, eh?" Fred asks.

"You got that right," replies Natalie.

"Got what right? You mean you can't resist me?" asks Simon.

"No, not that," says Natalie.

"I mean, she was just walking along the hall when one of her mates tripped up this little kid and she fell in front of her, and Karen says, lick my shoe," says Fred, still appalled.

"Yup, that's one of the things Karen Baines would say," replies Natalie, taking a sip of water.

"Nat, are you sure you're ok?" asks Mik, resting a hand on her shoulder. Natalie snaps out of her parallel world.

"What? I gotta go guys." And she picks up her bags and folder and leaves Simon and Mik sitting on the grass, amazed that she'd spent the entire time talking to somebody else.


	4. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

As Natalie gets home, Fred opens the front door for her. Natalie groans and turns around to go back to her car, but Fred catches up with her and pushes her into the house and up to her room.

"So," he says, sitting Natalie down on the bed. "What are we going to do about this revenge?"

"Nothing," Natalie replies, "Absolutely nothing."

"Oh come on Poo Shoes! This is what Drop Dead Fred is really good at," Fred says, leaning against the door frame into the closet. Natalie gets up and pushes him into the closet shutting the door on him. "We've got to think of something really mean," his voice comes through the door, apparently unaffected by the closed door. He appears sitting on her bed, bouncing up and down. "I know, I know! We could cut off all her hair, or send her horrible gifts, or write 'Karen stinks of poo' all over the school walls." Fred looks so enthusiastic. "Or, we could put worms in that gunk she puts all over her face."

"I'd love to Fred, I sure would love to."

"What's that blue stuff anyway?" asks Fred, not bouncing so violently.

"It's chapstick, but it's clear but the blue pigment makes your teeth look whiter. Hey. Blue, Fred, I got an idea," she says, rolling onto her tummy on the bed and groping around under the bed for something, pulling out a make-up case. "I've got one of those blue sticks somewhere." She triumphantly pulls out a chapstick tube. "Alright." Natalie says, rolling up all the chapstick and throwing it in the bin, leaving the tube. "I need some beeswax." Fred, cooperatively pulls out a bees nest from a pocket, bees still buzzing around it. "Fred! Get rid of it! I don't want bees in my room, throw it out the window, where the hell did you get it?" Natalie opens the sash window for him.

"Back pocket, with the mice and worm slime," says Fred, putting the bees nest under his jacket where it disappeared. Natalie lays on the floor, back under the bed.

"Let me get the stuff I need," she says. Pulling things from under the bed until she finds what she's looking for, a paper bag containing two sticks of beeswax and a box of vitamin e capsules. She takes a small glass jar from one drawer and runs downstairs, slamming the door behind her. Fred, not wanting to miss anything, follows her at quite a pace, banging into the closed door.

"You, you, you, door! Who put you there?" he asks the door, running at it again, and again bouncing back off it. He tries one more time, and he runs straight through it.

In the kitchen Natalie has taken out a saucepan and placed it on the hob, full of water that's heating up. She's grating the stick of beeswax.

"Natalie, I'm bored," says Fred, after silently watching her grate the stick for about thirty seconds.

"Well, go and do something else, you weren't here for seventeen years, I'm sure you weren't bored for that long," says Natalie, putting the grated wax into the jar, followed by some olive oil and the contents of the vitamin e capsule and six or seven generous drops of blue food dye. She puts a drop on the end of one finger and then washes it down the sink, the blue mark remained. "Good." She drops the little jar into the boiling water, where it floats, and she stirs it with a cocktail stick.

Fred looks extremely bored, head resting on his hand, propped up on the worktop. Fifteen minutes have gone past and the wax is only just starting to melt, while Natalie stirs it. Fred, now too tired to keep himself propped up, slithers to the floor, where he lies still.

"Are you done yet?" he asks.

"Nearly," replies Natalie, as Elizabeth comes into the kitchen in a flowing pink skirt and white blouse. She walks up to Natalie.

"What're you up to?" she asks her, peering over her shoulder.

"I'm making some cosmetics," Natalie replies. She hears Fred hiss and looks down at him. He's laying on his back, where he fell, looking up Elizabeth's skirt. Elizabeth moves and he uses his feet to slide himself on his back wherever she goes. Natalie just rolls her eyes. Elizabeth goes to the fridge and gets some cold water. "I'm nearly done," Natalie says, turning off the heat and picking up the jar with a pair of tweezers, pouring the runny blue substance into the empty chapstick tube. She lets it cool for a second, pouring the hot water down the sink, and then runs the now cool waxy substance over another finger, leaving a strong blue mark. "Excellent," she says, putting the cap on the tube and putting the tube in her pocket.

Natalie sits a chair behind Karen in Psychology, looking into Karen's bag, at the same clear chapstick tube, idly tapping her pen on the desk, not listening to what Mr. Preston is saying. He turns around, and tells them to get on with their work, the instructions being up on the board. Natalie throws her pen down by Karen's seat, Karen, who wouldn't help Natalie if she was being eaten up by a mad rhinoceros, looks down at the pen and then back up. Natalie slides off her chair, chapstick in hand and picks up the pen, sneakily replacing the clear chapstick with the blue one.

Natalie doesn't see Karen for most of the day after that. But, she does pass her with all her popular friends when Natalie's at her locker, piling all her books into it at the end of the day. Karen walks past, her lips a royal blue, sulking like a four year old. Natalie smirks into her locker, just noticing Karen glaring at her blue-tipped fingers as she stalks past.

"Shit," says Natalie, banging her locker shut.

Oh well, there'll be payback for that. Ahh, don't worry, Fred's always coming up with something.


	5. Chapter Five

_**A/N: **Ooooh, that mean Karen! I really need to include more Fred. . ._

**Chapter Five**

There was payback for Natalie. She opened her locker the next morning to find the whole thing full of expanding foam, sprayed in through the edges. After scraping foam off of the folders she'd left in there the previous day, and shaking the sheets of paper so foam dripped all over the hall floor as other students watched from afar, pointing and laughing. Natalie tried to make a joke out of it, after all, she could see how it was funny, and if she laughed at it, Karen wouldn't have won, right? So she did laugh, shaking the foam over everyone who dared go past her and making a joke.

"She's a bitch," says Fred, appearing beside her as she closed the locker door, foam on his nose and in his hair, holding it back like gel. "Although, foam's fun!" He rolls about on the floor in the foam for a minute, while people walk past him, and over him. He makes a face whenever anyone steps on him. Then, he's up by Natalie's side.

"What the fuck has happened Natalie?" asks Mik, walking up to her best friend. Natalie gives her a little laugh.

"Karen's filled my locker with foam," Natalie says as she spies Karen walking up the hall. She makes her voice a little louder and puts a bit of foam on the end of her and Mik's noses. "Yeah, sure it peed me off for a minute because my stuff's ruined, but now, I can completely see the funny side of it. Haven't laughed so much in ages, so Karen's really achieved nothing." She gives a giggle for effect as Karen walks past, smirking and then sulking again at Natalie's happy face. Mik laughs with her, rubbing foam into Natalie's hair. Fred, stands up by the closed door of the locker.

"So everyone likes foam?" he asks.

"Psychology," Mik reminds Natalie, Mr. Preston had given Natalie another sheet, and told her to do the homework herself or be given detention, so she'd taken the homework. She opens the locker again, smashing it in Fred's face as he stands in the way.

"Poo Shoes!" he complains. "Right," he begins, as Natalie and Mik walk towards the classroom. "Now, I know you laughed and everything, but really, I know you're pissed off with her, so, what can we do in revenge?" Fred ponders.

"How do you know?" Natalie asks in response to Mik's question.

"Well, foam on your stuff isn't good, and as good as foam is, it was a mean thing to do. I can also read your mind," says Fred, leaning in close to Natalie and talking right into her ear, stretching out the word 'mind.' Natalie swats him away like a fly.

"She's sure peed off her little trick didn't work," says Mik at lunch, after Natalie had cleared out her locker and washed it down they were sitting back on the grass. Fred, bored, was sitting a little distance off and pelting Karen with peanuts. Each time she looked round, and each time she couldn't see who was throwing them.

"Yeah, but, it doesn't bother me," says Natalie, watching Fred with an eyebrow arched. "Well, actually it does, and I'm planning revenge at this very minute." Fred looks up, just as Karen picks up a peanut by her feet and throws it back in the direction of who's throwing them, hitting Fred squarely between the eyes. He staggers for a minute, and then carries on walking towards Natalie.

"Revenge? That's what I'm talking about!" says Fred, rubbing his hands together and hopping around like a three year old.

"Revenge? What are you gonna do?" asks Mik, interested.

"We're gonna stamp on her!" Fred exclaims. "We're going to take off all her clothes and dress up the stone guy in the fountain with them." Natalie smiles, thinking of the statue in the fountain dressed in Karen's clothes.

"What?" asks Mik.

"I dunno, the blue lips won't work again," says Natalie, looking over at Karen. Mik opens her mouth, then shuts it again.

"That was you!" she says, giving Natalie a hug.

"Fred's right though, with the clothes and paint and stuff like that," Natalie muses.

"Who is this Fred?" asks Mik.

"He's my imaginary friend," says Natalie, as if were the most obvious thing in the world. Fred struts up to Mik.

"I'm her _real _friend, really really real," he says, stepping a few steps behind her and throwing a peanut at her head, Mik turns around to see who is was.

"That was Fred," says Natalie.

"Don't be stupid, if he's an imaginary friend then he couldn't pick peanuts up. And Nat, aren't you a little bit old for imaginary friends? You've got real friends," says Mik.

"I _am _real!" protests Fred, blowing as raspberry at Mik. "I'm Drop Dead Fred!"


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

"So, what else does Drop Dead Fred say?" asks Mik, mixing a yellowish liquid into water and stirring it in a jug. "What are his opinions on politics?" Natalie looks at Fred, who looks blankly back at her, arms folded, standing up against the door frame on the other side of the kitchen.

"Come on Fred, what's your opinion on politics?" asks Natalie.

"Why, I, erm, I. What's politics?" asks Fred.

"The running of the country, government, the President," prompts Natalie.

"Oh pooey, who wants to talk about the President?" says Fred, yawning.

"Fred doesn't have an opinion on politics," Natalie replies in answer to Mik's question. "In fact, his exact answer was, oh pooey, who wants to talk about the President."

"I don't," says Fred, as he walks over to the fridge and disappears inside.

"Oh," says Mik. "Have you got the bottle?" Natalie opens the lid of the perfume bottle she's holding and Mik pours the liquid, of a watery consistency, into it. Natalie caps it with the spray top.

"I think we're ready."

"Natalie, can I have a bit of that new perfume?" asks Mik, loudly across the classroom. Natalie rummages round in her bag.

"Sure," she says and passes the bottle to Mik, who pretends to spray a little onto her neck. Natalie gets up to take the bottle back, walking behind Karen's chair as she does so, quietly spraying a little onto the back of her top, and then sitting back down innocently.

An hour or so later, and Karen was wearing a baggy, unflattering white school top, her new chiffon one in a plastic bag in her locker. The offending top, now had a rather large yellow bleached patch on the back.

Karen sits with her friends in the cafeteria, heads together.

"I won't let her get away with it," Karen says. "There's one thing she'll do anything for, the one thing I'll take away."

"What's that?" all her friends ask, almost in unison.

"Her boyfriend."


	7. Chapter Seven

_**A/N: **Thank you Oddity Incarnate for your lovely review!_

_xx_

**Chapter Seven**

"So, see you tonight?" asks Karen, Simon sitting opposite her.

"Sure, pick you up at seven?" asks Simon, letting go of her hand and leaving. Natalie and Mik come up to him, both eating ice-creams.

"You alright?" Simon asks her.

"Sure," she says. "You?"

"Yeah."

"Listen, I've been thinking, do you want to go out tonight?" asks Natalie, sitting opposite Simon, where Karen had been sitting minutes previously. Simon's quiet for a moment.

"I can't, I'm going out with some mates," he says, a little uncomfortably.

"Oh yeah? Where you going?" asks Natalie, interested.

"Down the club, with the guys," says Simon.

"Cool, Mik, d'you fancy going to the club tonight?"

"Yeah, sure," agrees Mik. Simon knows he's going to be defeated.

"I'm going out with Karen!" he almost shouts. Natalie does a double-take.

"Karen Baines?" she asks. Simon nods.

"Listen Natalie, things haven't been going too we. . ."

"KAREN BAINES?"

"Yes, with Karen Baines, who will probably prove to be a better girlfriend than you ever were!" and then he left. Natalie sank to the floor, Mik with her.

"Well, Karen Baines. I suppose that's it Mik, I suppose that's it."

"Just before Valentine's Day too," Natalie sniffs into a tissue in her room, Mik sitting beside her on the bed.

"You'll still get Valentines," says Mik.

"No I won't," says Natalie. "Just before Valentine's Day? What was he thinking? He could have least waited until after Valentine's Day."

"Well, I suppose it's better that you know now, because otherwise it would have come as a bigger shock just after Valentines," comforts Mik.

"Yeah, well. Karen Baines," sobs Natalie, throwing the tissue into the bin and picking up a new one. "Slimy, horrible, bitchy, boyfriend-snatching, cow, slut that Karen Baines is."

"Yup," agrees Mik. She hugs her best friend. "Are you alright now?" Natalie nods.

"Where's Fred?" she asks. Mik looks around.

"I dunno Nat," she says. "I can't see him anywhere." Fred appears beside Natalie.

"Fred's not great with things like this, Fred's more of a fun person," Fred says.

"Well Fred can bugger off then," says Natalie. Fred huffs and disappears.

"Don't worry about it. Break-ups happen, there's always the chance to make-up and there's plenty other fish in the sea. Go enjoy yourself," says Mik.

"We could send her a Valentine's from Simon and in the pretty little box there could be lots of dog poo," says Fred, appearing suddenly again.

"That's disgusting Fred," Natalie sniffed, "But I like it, just gotta wait till Valentines." Mik took Natalie's hand.

"Now, what I propose is we go out to the club, like we arranged to, have a good time, get drunk, throw up in our favorite throwing-up toilet, and show Simon that he can't get us down," she says. Natalie looks at her through tear-stained eyes and smiles.

"Yes, that's a good idea. He's not worth it," she brushes the remaining tears from her eyes and stands up.

"That's more like it!" says Fred, happily clapping his hands together in glee.

"I'll go home and get some stuff, and be back here in half an hour," says Mik, jumping down the stairs.

"Sure."


	8. Chapter Eight

_**A/N: **RAH! Hehee, back again._

**Chapter Eight**

So Natalie and Mik go to the club, have a good time, dance, get drunk and throw up.

Karen Baines and Simon are across the room, but Natalie tries not to let them get her down. She attracts guys left right and centre, and Simon looks over a couple of times.

"Is that a little jealousy in his face or what?" asks Mik, jumping about like a mad thing.

"I dunno," says Natalie, spinning herself and her newfound male friend round so she could talk to Mik. "Hey look, where're they going?" Simon leads Karen out of the dance hall.

"You can get up to the roof," says Mik, "It's no big deal." Natalie looks over to where they disappeared and stops dancing.

"Come on," she takes Mik's hand and leads her over to the roof passage.

They climb five or six sets of stairs, following Simon and Karen until they reach the roof, where the two girls sit down by the top of the stairs to listen. Karen and Simon sit near the edge.

"Isn't it romantic?" asks Karen, leaning in to give Simon a kiss, but he's not too sure about it.

"Listen, Karen," he begins, but Karen smashes her lips down on his, and he forcefully pulls back from her.

"Karen, this isn't gonna work between me and you," he says. "And I know while you're drunk this isn't gonna make any sense and you probably aren't going to remember it in the morning."

"What?" asks Karen, oblivious to anything he had just said, swaying her arms about like a bird in flight.

"This isn't gonna work! I still love Natalie," Simon almost shouts. Natalie, from her and Mik's hiding place, gasps.

"He still loves me, he still loves me," she says to Mik and they jump around hugging, then acutely listen in to what else Simon is saying.

"Natalie?" Karen asks. "Natalie. Oh, Natalie!"

"Yeah, my girlfriend," says Simon.

"I am not your girlfriend," whispers Natalie furiously from ten or eleven feet behind him. "And you are not my boyfriend, you need to do a hell of a lot before you're my boyfriend again."

"You have a girlfriend?" Karen asks, and hiccups. "Simon, Simon, I've loved you ever since I saw you first, and it broke my heart when you went out with Natalie," Karen almost spits the name.

"Yeah? Well I love her, I love her, and if you can't get along with her, and like her, then I guess we'll never even be friends," says Simon, getting up and walking back to the stairs, Natalie and Mik shrink back from the light and hide in the shadows as he passes. Karen gets up, swaggering a little.

"Come on Nat, we can't leave her up here like this, she'll fall off the edge, it was quite irresponsible of Si to leave a drunk girl on top of a building," says Mik, getting up also and helping up Natalie. They hear a scream behind them and twist round, startled. Natalie runs to the edge of the building, where Karen is holding on for dear life.

"You talked too soon Mik," she says, resting on her knees and taking Karen's wrist to pull her up.

"Help me, help me, help me help me. Please," Karen sobs. Natalie pulls Karen's wrist, and takes the other one as she lifts it up.

"Why are you helping her?" asks Fred, now also leaning over the edge of the building a little too far. He falls off.

"Fred!" Natalie yells, and loosens her grip on Karen for a second. A second where she sees Fred get up from the sidewalk unhurt, as if he had fallen five or six inches. He looks up at Natalie and Karen, before they both shift a little further over the edge.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Chapter Nine**

Mik pulls Natalie back, in turn pulling Karen up, safely over the edge of the building. She stands a little dazed for a minute.

"Natalie?" she asks. "Thank you. Oh my God."

"Are you ok?" Mik asks the now much sober Karen. Karen thinks for a minute.

"Yeah, I'm ok."

"Come on," Mik says, helping Karen back down to the club and out onto the sidewalk where Fred's still standing.

"Got her down then?" he asks. "She ruins everything for you and then you save her life," he says, directly to Karen. "You, you, megabitch!"

"Thank you, Natalie," she says.

"And Mik," pipes up Mik, standing beside her. Karen smiles at her and then turns and leaves, walking back down the street home.

"Do you think we should have taken her home?" asks Natalie.

"Nah, she can do that by herself," say Mik. "You wanna dance?" Natalie nods and they head back into the club, closely followed by Fred.

After a while longer in the club - after Fred had repeatedly smashed full bottles of spirits behind the bar to the bar tender's amazement, and his dancing amid the throngs of people on the dance floor, which wasn't totally in time or of any particular style – Natalie and Mik head home, having not found Simon again, and not bothering to look any harder.

"Do you suppose Karen's all tucked up in bed?" Mik asks on the way home.

"No, she's probably out partying, it is, after all, Friday night," says Natalie.

"Sure, we'll see her at school on Monday, and then she can properly thank us."

"You want a ceremony too?" asks Natalie in amazement.

"Yeah!"

"Well I think you'll be unlucky there. At most she won't be as mean, hopefully. She'll be nicer to us now won't she? We saved her life," says Natalie.

"She better be nicer to us. And anyway, Tuesday is Valentines. Maybe you'll get something from Simon," says Mik. Natalie shakes her head.

"I don't want anything from Simon. He's a loser and I am over him. You should be a relationships therapist Mik. When people have broken up should be there to give them confidence in themselves, self-esteem, and make them realize that all guys aren't worth anything," says Natalie.

"That's a good idea, I now have one career suggestion Natalie, thank you," says Mik, bowing low. "You could become a nun!"

"Mik, you'll never be a relationships therapist."


	10. Chapter Ten

**Chapter Ten**

They did see Karen Baines on Monday at school, who had denied anything out of the ordinary happening that Friday night at the club. They also saw the pictures of Natalie throwing up in the club bathroom stuck all over the school, with the caption 'normal people don't lick toilet seats.'

"Oooh, I'll have her," says Mik, trying to make a swing for Karen as she walked coolly down the hall, but Natalie held her back.

"Don't waste your energy on her, she's not worth it," says Natalie.

"Natalie?" asks Simon, coming up behind her.

"Hello," says Natalie, politely.

"Can I have a word?" he asks.

"Sure."

"Erm, Last Friday. . ."

"Sorry, got to go!" says Natalie and Mik pulls her away down the hall, leaving Simon standing by himself.

"The cheek of him!" explodes Mik. "Guys!"

"Simon Pincent!" Karen shouts from the other side of the hall the next day. Valentine's Day. "What kind of joke do you call this?" She storms up to Simon, who is standing near Natalie and Mik - and Fred unbeknown to him - trying to talk to her again. Karen waves a cute pale pink little box under his nose, filled with white tissue paper. Simon moves his head back.

"What's in there?" asks Simon, disgusted.

"What?" exclaims Karen. "You sent it!"

"No I didn't," says Simon, carefully touching the tissue paper to see what was in the box. Natalie stands on her tiptoes to see as well.

"Dog poo!" she exclaims, laughing.

"You sent it!" declares Karen angrily.

"I didn't send it!" Natalie holds her hands up in protest, and looks towards Fred.

"Sorry, couldn't help myself," he says, Natalie puts her arms round him.

"Thanks Fred."

"Happy Valentine's Day."


End file.
